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June 15 - July 7, 2022
Ultimately, when trying to achieve transferable strength gains from heavy strength training, it is not the change in 1RM that matters, but the change in the ability to produce voluntary force.
We can take a much more complete approach if we understand that 1RM in any exercise can be increased in four different ways: (1) improved technique, (2) increased intermuscular coordination, (3) increased voluntary activation, and (4) beneficial changes in muscle-tendon unit properties.
increase in tendon stiffness (stiffer tendons allow muscles to shorten at slower speeds, and therefore exert more force), (2) increases in the number of lateral attachments between the muscle fiber and its surrounding collagen layer (this increases the amount of force that is transmitted laterally, but reduces the effective fiber length), and (3) increases in muscle size at specific regions of the muscle (this increases the ability of the muscle to produce force at certain, specific joint angles).
Ultimately, setting the percentage of 1RM is a way of setting the proximity to failure. Ideally, we want to get close enough to failure to ensure that we have recruited all the high-threshold motor units, but we don’t really want to accumulate too much fatigue.
The fatigue can arise from changes inside the central nervous system (CNS) or from inside the muscle. This is why the expression “neuromuscular fatigue” is sometimes used. This means that there are three key factors (1) peripheral fatigue, (2) central fatigue, and (3) muscle damage.
In fact, the nature of central fatigue means that it increases with increasing exercise duration, and decreases with exercise intensity. Thus, long cycle rides actually cause more central fatigue than short, intense ones.
Muscle damage is increased by higher volumes, a closer proximity to failure, longer duration (isometric) contractions, heavier loads, larger ranges of motion, a more elongated muscle, and by using a constant load rather than accommodating resistance.
To accelerate recovery from a strength training workout, bodybuilders, strength athletes, and team sports athletes must minimize muscle damage. Clearly, this requires managing the factors that cause muscle damage within the workout. These are: (1) muscle force, (2) fatigue, (3) time under tension, and (4) exercise familiarity.
Unfortunately, many of the adaptations that are sought by bodybuilders, strength athletes, and team sports athletes require workouts to incorporate one or all of these factors.
Team sports athletes use strength training to improve sprinting performance, change of direction ability, and jump height.
Importantly, high-velocity strength is best improved using light loads and fast bar speeds, because it is achieved through increases in early phase neural drive (large bursts of rate coding), reduced coactivation, and changes to muscle fiber contractile properties.
In contrast, if team sports athletes focus the majority of their efforts on high-velocity strength training (often misleadingly called “power” training), they can avoid muscle damage altogether. While these athletes still require eccentrics for both injury prevention and certain aspects of performance, these can be allocated over the week to avoid adverse effects.
Common training variables include: (1) Contraction mode (eccentric, concentric, isometric, or stretch-shortening cycle), (2) relative load (percentage of one repetition-maximum), (3) external load type (constant load or elastic resistance), (4) range of motion, (5) exercise selection, (6) volume, (7) proximity to failure, (8) rest period duration, and (9) repetition duration (tempo).
While longer ranges of motion (ROM) produce more muscle damage than shorter ones, full ROMs do not *always* cause more muscle growth than partial ones. Partial ROMs probably produce greater levels of muscle growth when the muscle has a very long internal moment arm length (leverage) in the middle of the exercise ROM, because this would force the full ROM exercise to use a load that is too small to keep tension on the muscle at all times. Therefore, ROM also needs to be considered on a muscle-by-muscle basis.
Similarly, very short rest periods (less than 1 minute) also produce more muscle damage than more moderate rest periods, both in humans and in animal models (provided that the muscle activation is maximal, indicating that the degree of motor unit recruitment is not the driving factor).
Transitory reductions in performance during strength training can be caused by three factors: (1) central nervous system fatigue, (2) peripheral (metabolic) fatigue, and (3) muscle damage.
This means that under normal (non-pathological) circumstances, any reductions in strength that last for more than 24 hours *must* be caused by muscle damage. That’s all it is.
In the case of muscular changes, muscle protein synthesis rates are elevated for 24–36 hours after a workout, while central nervous system adaptations occur within a few hours at most.
The General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) was proposed by the researcher Hans Selye.
In other words, when we adapt to the stressor, we can withstand a larger dose of the *same* stressor in the future.
Muscle damage only arises after workouts involving either (1) high forces while the muscle is lengthening or in a lengthened position, or (2) a high degree of fatigue. Moreover, muscle damage is always greater when the workout is unaccustomed, compared to when it has been done before.
Strength and conditioning practice has four key principles: progressive overload, specificity, individuality, and variety.
The main ways in which I have seen periodization defined are: (1) normative, (2) teleological, and (3) descriptive.
For example, many researchers and coaches have noted that the purposes of periodization are (1) to improve performance, and (2) to reduce the risk of overtraining.
(1) a randomly varying program, (2) a non-randomly varying program that does not pre-plan the content of the workouts (e.g. using autoregulation), and (3) a non-randomly varying program that does not timetable the content of the workouts (i.e. uses tests to determine when to move from one type of workout to the next)
allow the athlete to focus all of their efforts on improving a single strength quality. This model is a sprint to accumulate the greatest possible gains before risking exhaustion. This approach has the potential for large improvements to be made, but it also runs the risk that each strength quality will revert back to its previous levels in later blocks, while other strength qualities are trained.
Undulating periodization models — allow the athlete to distribute their efforts on improving multiple strength qualities, without losing gains made in any strength quality. This model is a marathon, in which exhaustion is less likely but gains are slow to arrive.
